Aging Gracefully

In recent weeks, I have been actively involved in throwback Thursdays on Instagram. This comes as no surprise to my friends who might remember the old photos I started posting on Facebook five years ago, as I always had a camera on me as a youngin’ (some things never change). It appears that my inherent need and desire to document life comes in many forms and has become a constant in my life for a long time.

And what’s really interesting about looking back at old photos is seeing how much we have grown. I’ve had many people say to me recently that I look the same as I did in high school, some saying I look better now. When I look back at these photos, I see lots of bad phases, some awkwardness as I grew into my body, and some periods where I had things going just right. Sometimes, I looked really young, and boy was I skinny!

Overall, I think I have been aging pretty well. In many ways, I have to agree that I don’t look all that different from when I was a senior in high school. There are small changes — gray hairs sprouting, the beginnings of creases in my face — little things that freak you out when you look in the mirror, but are to be expected.

I consider myself pretty lucky that I haven’t fallen off the deep end, but it takes hard work to ensure a graceful aging process, and it takes knowledge. What can I expect to happen to my body as I get older? I can already feel how foods affect me differently now than they did when I was young. McDonald’s sounds like a good idea at the time, but now I immediately regret it after I eat it. My body is less forgiving in many ways, so I need to think twice to make sure I care for it.

Bottom line — you can’t wait until you are old to start doing good for your body. I am in a constant battle between enjoying all of the deliciousness this world has to offer and in making healthy choices. I’ll do really well for a week, and then allow myself to cheat. This cycle has been working for now, but I know at some point I’ll have to tip the scale towards the healthy side more often.

But I’ll probably always sneak a piece of chocolate. Old habits die hard.

Like this:

but weirdly enough, unlike a lot around me, I’ve always looked forward to getting older (i.e. I don’t dread my next birthdays). Kind of a “been there, done that” mentality, along with “can’t wait to see what happens next”. Hey, we can’t stop this process of life, right? Let’s enjoy the deliciousness (and curse while on the elliptical). 😉